Trident missiles ‘a safeguard to nuclear blackmail’

SCOTT MACNAB

DAVID Cameron has told Scots that keeping Trident as part of the UK is the country’s only safeguard against “nuclear blackmail” in years to come in a speech in Glasgow.

• Warning coincides with Cameron’s Scotland visit

• Prime Minister uses North Korea tensions as example

The SNP government has pledged to remove the Clyde-based nuclear weapons from Scotland if voters back independence in next year’s referendum, and opinion polls suggest the majority of Scots oppose Trident’s renewal.

The Prime Minister visited Faslane yesterday and was winched aboard HMS Victorious, a Vanguard-class submarine which carries the Trident missiles, and met the crew.

He later took questions from an audience of defence workers in Glasgow where he underlined the importance of the industry which employs 12,800 across Scotland.

The estimated £100 billion cost of replacing Trident has come under fire at a time of swingeing budget cuts and the Tory leader was accused of being “out of touch” by the SNP government. But Mr Cameron insisted that an increasingly volatile international situation means the four Trident submarines must be replaced in full.

“The world is very uncertain and dangerous,” he said as he addressed workers at Thales in Glasgow yesterday.

“There are nuclear states and one can’t be sure how they will develop and we can’t be sure about the issue of proliferation.

“To me having that nuclear deterrent is quite simply the best insurance policy that we have that we will never be subject to nuclear blackmail.”

He had earlier warned in a newspaper article that only the retention of Trident “makes clear to any adversary that the devastating cost of an attack on the UK or its allies will always be far greater than anything it might hope to gain.”

But Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Scotland has faced unfair military cuts under the Coalition government and insisted that only independence will rid the country of nuclear weapons.

“Trident isn’t the answer to the threats we face as a country,” Ms Sturgeon said. “It diverts resources from conventional defence – which in Scotland has faced disproportionate cuts by successive UK governments – and the vast amounts of money spent on Trident and its replacement would be far better spent on other priorities.

“Furthermore, all of the available evidence – including votes in our own parliament – point to the people of Scotland being utterly opposed to nuclear weapons being based here.

“We are pledged to get rid of Trident, and only an independent Scotland will be able to do so.” The SNP has pledged to retain Faslane, where Trident is housed, as a conventional naval base and the HQ of its planned Scottish Defence Force , ensuring Scotland is “properly defended.”

Mr Cameron, who says he remains committed to keeping defence jobs in Scotland, said the 12,800 defence workers in Scotland amounts to around 0.5 per cent of the working population.

Jobs include shipbuilding, manufacturing, and making components for jets which are sold to foreign countries.

The Prime Minister also again appealed to Scots to reject independence yesterday, insisting the case for keeping the union can be won on both the “arguments of the heart and arguments of the head.”

He added: “The Scottish Nationalists believe they have an advantage when it comes to the heart – with Braveheart and all of that. “I actually think we should be very proud of what the UK has achieved together – that fact that we together have defeated fascism, we built the national health service, produced the BBC.

“We produced so many great works of art and architecture, so many great businesses – we should be proud of those things.

“But the arguments of the head like jobs, finance, stability – I think the arguments of the head are even stronger in the direction of retaining the UK.”

But the Lib Dems last night reaffirmed their belief that alternative nuclear deterrents to Trident shoud be considered.

Senior Lib Dem MP Sir Malcolm Bruce said: “ment. We are saying we shouldn’t replace Trident on a like-for-like basis but we are looking at alternative nuclear deterrents once Trident has passed its sell-by date.

“We also recognise the cost of a nuclear deterrent is extremely high and there are many people inside the Ministry Of Defence and the armed forces who desperately want to ensure that we have the latest and most up-to-date conventional equipment.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.